Gayla M. Mills is an author, hobbyist roots musician, and former college instructor. Returning to music to help her husband record his songs, she discovered a new life in a rich musical circle. Her book Making Music for Life guides those in the second half of life to pursue their dreams with music.
Prior to writing her book about music, Gayla published over sixty essays, features, and reviews on a range of universal topics from music and family to mortality and living fully. She also taught college students to write, ESL learners to speak English idiomatically, high school dropouts the skills to earn their GEDs, and prison inmates to read.

Meanwhile, she entwined music into her lessons, designed a creative writing class “Making Words from Music,” and taught grammar to non-native speakers by using song lyrics. Now Gayla teaches those over forty how to rediscover playing and bring more music to their communities.

As an amateur roots musician who returned to music fifteen years ago, Gayla Mills has come to appreciate the joys that making music can bring. Along with her husband Gene, she has recorded three albums and played hundreds of gigs. joined music circles, jammed, and made new friends while nurturing old ones.

In the process, Gayla has learned a lot about playing music in the second half of life. Yet there’s been no book to help others go down a similar road more smoothly. So she talked with dozens of musicians, read countless articles, dug down to find rare resources and pulled it together into Making Music for Life to make it easier for others to pursue their own musical journey. Find out more about her at https://www.gaylamills.com/